I came across this gender-writing analyzer this week in Grokdotcom.
So decided to run a few posts through the analyzer.
Personalization Trend: design your own credit card -- female score 550, male score 887 -- MALE!
So You Want Innovative Thinking -- female score 1777, male score 1353 -- FEMALE!
The Power of a Good Story -- female score 1169, male score 1572 -- MALE!
I tried to choose longer posts, with relatively few quotes, which would likely skew the results, so this feels like a reasonable test of the device.
So, does this mean that the gender-genie is wrong? Or that I am cleverly disguised as a female?
Personality Type and Communication Style
Actually, I think it means I use a lot of words and constructions that are more commonly used by men.
If you have a background in personality type theory (aka. Myers-Briggs), then you know that there is a gender difference on the thinking/feeling preference. Males are 65% Thinking dominant as a decision-making style preference and females are 65% Feeling dominant as a decision-making style preference. Although the difference is minor, it is strongly reinforced in socialization. [As it happens, I have a preference for Thinking as a decision-making style. Women with this preference are often perceived as being somewhat aggressive. Men with a feeling preference are often perceived as wimpy.]
The language choices of those with Feeling dominant tend to emphasize harmony and empathy, whereas the language choices of those with Thinking dominant tend to emphasize logic and fairness.
The online tool is based on an algorithm developed by Moshe Koppel, Bar-Ilan University, Israel, and Shlomo Argamon, Illinois Institute of Technology. They claim their algorithm can detect the gender of the author. I'm more inclined to agree with Mary Dell on Book Blog, who says,
"you can't tell if a writer is a man or a woman, but it is an interesting study in what kind of writing is perceived as male (i.e. concrete) or female (i.e. connective)."
What does it all mean?
I know I need to make some kind of linkage to customer experience here and it's this: we don't all communicate in the same way. Worth considering when you think about customer experience.
References:
New York Times test formula
One of the many academic articles on the topic, which claims 80% accuracy in identifying gender of author.
Gender Genie's story is on Book Blog
Personality Type Theory overviews can be found in Answers.com or Wikipedia. Numerous free online testing tools are available. David Keirsey's temperament sorter is a good one.
Another version of the gender-tester is here. Another online tool that provides the FOG index, as well as a gender assessment.
